Felix Baumgartner's record-breaking skydive scrapped by wind

The waiting continues for Felix Baumgartner as he and his team
contemplate their next move after his dream of a record-setting
skydive from 36.6 kilometres postponed by Mother Nature.

"Fearless" Felix was tantalisingly close to making his death-defying
leap into the record book when the mission was aborted due
to high wind over the launch site in Roswell, New Mexico. The
Austrian adventurer was strapped into his space capsule and
dangling from a crane as his crew started inflating the 55-story balloon that would carry
him aloft when mission control scrubbed the launch.

"Today's launch has been aborted at 11.42hrs MDT due to wind
gusts making an attempt too risky. Felix has been removed from the
capsule," mission control said in a statement. "At this stage the
mission team is closely monitoring possible new launch days before
a green light is given for another countdown."

There's no word yet from Baumgartner, who has spent five years
training for the jump, and no date set for his next attempt. Red
Bull tweeted, "It is definitely not off for good. We are just
waiting to see when better weather conditions arrive."

Baumgartner hopes to become the first person to exceed the speed
of sound (about 1,100kph at that altitude) in free fall during a
stratospheric skydive from 36.6 kilometres. Should he succeed,
Baumgartner will top an official record set 52 years ago when
then-Capt. Joe Kittinger took a leap from 31.3 kilometres.
Kittinger, like Baumgartner, hoped to expand our understanding of what happens during a free fall from
extreme altitude. Such lessons could be valuable as commercial
space flight takes off.

Baumgartner's already made two test jumps -- from
21 kilometres up in March and from 29 kilometres up in July -- and spent the weekend
completing a detailed "dress rehearsal" of the 58 steps he will
follow before his capsule lifts off.

The jump was originally scheduled for Monday, but team
meteorologist Don Day had it pushed back 24 hours due to weather. The timetable had
Baumgartner beginning his ascent at dawn today, but wind gusts
pushed the launch to 11:30 am Mountain time. Even as Baumgartner
waited through the morning, mission control continued preparing for
liftoff.

Baumgartner donned his custom-made space suit, and was then strapped into
his capsule shortly before 11 am Mountain time. But it soon became
apparent that the wind would not cooperate; the balloon, which has
a volume of 849,505 cubic metres and weighs approximately 1,800
kilograms, was being whipped about even as it was being inflated.
Mission control decided it was too risky to proceed.

"I'm going through a lot of misery because I'm looking at a big
image of Felix in front of me, so I can only imagine what he goes
through," technical project director Art Thompson said during a
press conference at the launch site. "As y'all know [it's been] a
multi-year build up to get to this point."

The launch window is not expected to reopen before 11 October
because a cold front is expected to bring more wind on 10 October.
The clock is ticking, because the weather will only grow more
challenging as winter approaches.

The balloon, made of plastic one-tenth as thick as a sandwich
bag, can be launched only in near-calm conditions. Although the
wind was calm on the desert surface on 9 October, it was hitting
32kph at an elevation of 213 metres, a height the massive balloon
will approach once fully inflated.

The fact that the team started inflating the balloon before the
mission was scrubbed raises another problem -- the balloon, for
safety reasons, is used once. Now that it's been partially
inflated, the team must rely upon the spare. They could get
another, but given that the balloon is made from 40 strips of
material that would cover 40 acres if laid out over a field, it'll
take awhile.

"It's possible to get other balloons, [but] the lead times are
probably not good unless someone happens to have one," Thompson
said.